


There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:20:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1335223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime kills a king and saves a queen, all within one short hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jaime killed a King and saved a Queen, all within just one short hour.

Aerys’ blood was still wet on his golden sword when he drove it up under Gregor Clegane’s backplate, pushing as hard and deep as he could, wild with something like bloodlust and something like madness and something that he would never, ever admit to being fear.

He was distantly aware of the Mountain’s hand catching him on the side of the head, wondered when he had taken off his helm, and withdrew his blade. His father’s dog crumpled at his feet, bleeding as red as any other man despite being less a man and more a monster.

Princess Elia - _Queen_ Elia - had been thrown down on the bed, and one of her narrow wrists had broken with the impact. Prince Aegon was screaming in his crib, and Princess Rhaenys-

Jaime’s sword took Amory Lorch through the throat, and he wound the little princess’ favourite golden-red scarf tight around her arm in a bid to halt the bleeding - what luck that Lorch was as poor a marksman as he was a man, that he had only managed to stab the Princess in the flesh of her arm, not anywhere that would have left a fatal wound, a wound of any sort beyond Jaime’s meagre capabilities to mend.

He carried her, whimpering in his arms, and laid her beside Princess Elia, fetched Prince Aegon from his crib and set him in his mother’s arms, and realised suddenly that he could hardly see for the pain in his head.

 

* * *

 

When Jaime awoke, the bells were ringing and half his head was wrapped in bandages.

Cersei was sitting by his bed, pink cheeked and perfect.

“Why did you do it?” she said petulantly. “If you hadn’t interfered, _I_ might have been-”

Whatever she might have been, Jaime chose not to know - chose not to remember that his father had once sought to make a Queen of Cersei, and that had Princess Elia been murdered along with her children, Cersei would have been a viable option for Rhaegar’s new wife, her children his new heirs - and instead tried to sit up.

The pain in his head drove him back against the pillows, and he looked through the one eye that was not hidden under bandages at Cersei. She seemed to lack any of the sympathy he would have felt had _she_ been the one in pain.

“The King is blaming Father for all that went wrong in the city,” she said coldly. “He is rewarding _you,_ but he is punishing Father by refusing to name him to the small council.”

Jaime was unsurprised - he had long suspected that Prince Rhaegar mistrusted his lord father, mistrusted _him_ for being a Lannister. It was no great shock that the Prince would not want Tywin Lannister at his side as he rebuilt the realm after bringing it to its knees for the sake of a good fuck.

“Father will want to know that you are awake,” Cersei said, rising in one smooth movement and leaving the room without so much as a backwards glance. Jaime rankled at that – she had never been cold to him before, not like this, and he hated that she was being so now.

“I am a sworn brother of the Kingsguard,” he grumbled under his breath, setting to work unravelling the seemingly endless bandages around his head. “I did only my duty in protecting the Princess and her children.”

He did not much think of Aerys, for with memories of what Jaime considered to be his greatest act came memories of those terrible hours that had proceeded it, with Aerys whispering _burn them all,_ jealous of the success and power that was his son's and preferring to ruin them all than to see Rhaegar victorious.

So, rather than think of the madman they had all called King, Jaime wondered if Queen Rhaella had been informed of the state of affairs and if she was returning from Dragonstone, wondered how long he had been asleep for, wondered if Rhaegar and Princess Elia had been crowned King and Queen yet, wondered if little Princess Rhaenys' arm was healing, and then turned to seek out his shaving mirror to investigate what little damage the Mountain had managed to inflict.

And Jaime screamed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I am sorry for your suffering, ser,” the King – the _new_ King – said as they walked together in the gardens. Jaime had not expected Rhaegar to take much personal interest in him, not when there was so much to be done, but apparently Jaime had sunk into wild delirium in the week (a full _week_ asleep!) following the sack of the city, and he had raved about Aerys. Mad Aerys and his beloved fires.

“It is a trifle, Your Grace,” Jaime said, lying as well as he could, because being blind in one eye was considerably more than a trifle – Tyrion had written already, suggesting that he wear an eye patch, the little rogue, but for now there were endless bandages, changed every two hours. “Little indeed compared to your own sufferings, I am sure.”

Rhaegar's Lady Lyanna had died during the war, survived by their bastard son – Aerion, Rhaegar had named the boy, and the Queen Dowager had taken her little grandson under her wing, even offering to nurse him with the milk that was coming on for the babe she now carried.

“I wish to reward you, ser,” Rhaegar said in his quiet, sad voice, and Jaime turned to face him when he drew to a halt. “I had thought some prize or other, but you are a Lannister by birth and so trinkets and treasures will mean little to you.”

That, at least, was true. The only reward Jaime could ever truly want would be Cersei, but she was refusing to speak with him because he had obliterated her chances of becoming Queen.

“I had another thought, though,” the King said, “one that my lady supports.”

“Sire?”

“The Queen and I thought to release you from your vows,” Rhaegar said, folding his hands together and watching Jaime with cool, speculative eyes, eyes that had always seemed to see everything there was to see. “We thought to restore you to your rightful place as your father's heir, undoing the malice of my father in raising you to the white cloak in the first place, and we thought as well to arrange a suitable marriage on your behalf.”

“Your Grace is too kind,” Jaime said, feeling almost embarrassed – he had settled on never being anything but Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard, and the thought of once more being Jaime of House Lannister, heir to Casterly Rock, was a little overwhelming. _It ought to be Tyrion's,_ he found himself thinking unbidden, _he has a better mind for it than me._

It startled Jaime sometimes that his father, usually so astute and so practical, refused to see Tyrion's clever mind. It was unlike Tywin Lannister not to seize any and all weapons.

“There is one more thing,” the King said, now folding his arms and tucking his chin to his chest. “You have a brother, Ser Jaime, do you not?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Jaime said, surprised by someone bothering to think of Tyrion – nobody ever did, after all, especially not Father and Cersei. It was one of the few things he and Cersei ever really rowed about. “Tyrion. He is an imp.”

“So I have heard,” the King said, and only because Jaime had spent longer than most in close quarters with him could he see Rhaegar's quiet amusemennt. “Tell me, ser – has your lord father considered your brother's marital prospects?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see, eh?

Princess Rhaenys had declared her desire to marry Jaime, much to everyone's amusement save for Jaime's own.

"You are my champion," she insisted. "You saved us from the bad men. You should marry me now."

"I will ever be your champion, Princess," he assured her, feeling oddly guilty for knowing that he spoke lies. "But I am no longer of the Kingsguard, and your lord father has planned a marriage for you and one for me, but not for us together."

She pouted and flounced, but Jaime knew how to deal with such tantrums from years of experience. He set the Princess on her feet as gently as he could, and nudged her off toward Prince Viserys, who waited at Jaime's door, half suspicious and half curious. The little prince had been quiet and moody since the King's crowning, distrustful of everyone save for the Queen Dowager, the Queen, and Princess Rhaenys. He had never been a cheerful child, but his temper had been on a razor's edge these past days, worsened, apparently, by the most recent arrivals to the city.

 

* * *

 

 

Tyrion, of course, had climbed onto the table and sat there, poking at Jaime's near-healed wounds with curious fingers for the better part of an hour before producing a deep red leather eyepatch, patterned in Genna's precise stitches in the shape of a golden lion, and tying it around Jaime's head. "There now," he had pronounced, "you make a fine pirate, brother."

It had been a joy to have Tyrion with him these past days, especially since Cersei was still not talking to him - Tyrion, as always, simply talked and talked and talked, and tottered around with Jaime, introducing himself to everyone with a cheerful smile, charming the Queen Dowager and the Queen. He was ridiculed plenty, it was true, but Tyrion did not seem to mind that so much. 

Whispers followed in Jaime's footsteps too, after all -  _Kingslayer, Oathbreaker,_ and while both were true it did not make them sting any less. The King's assurance of faith and the Queen's sincere thankfulness helped, as did Jaime's own knowledge that he had done the best he could have done at the time. Aerys had not been a man to be reasoned with, but there was no refusing a sword in the gut, and Jaime did not think that anyone else would have done differently. There had been nothing else _to_ do.

And he had saved Queen Elia, and the Prince and Princess! Surely that counted for something! He had saved the whole damnable city, too, and they  _knew_ it, the damned ungrateful bastards, they  _knew_ he had stopped Aerys from ordering the whole city to be burned! 

Lord Stark was the worst of it - Honourable Ned, who'd called his banners in rebellion but was being excused, was being forgiven treason just as Jaime was, was holding himself as if his grief made him a better man than Jaime.

Tyrion thought Ned Stark was a fool, because Ned Stark was quietly making it known that he felt Jaime was deserving of punishment, not reward, and because Ned Stark was not making for his frozen wasteland with his Tully wife and his little son in tow. 

"If I had gone to war," Tyrion kept saying, "and had lost, I would not be so proud."

Of course, Jaime knew that there was little that would strip Tyrion of his pride, especially not now that the King had found him a bride - Doran Martell's little daughter, more or less of an age with Tyrion, the image of Queen Elia but without her frailty, was a worthy bride for the son of Tywin Lannister - so that he could hold his head up among those who would otherwise make him a fool.

Like the Tyrells, and the Hightowers, who had ridden so proudly into the city with Robert Baratheon's brothers as their prisoners. Oh, yes, how proud Fat Mace had been, to have defeated a man only Jaime's age, a man with no experience of warfare, with a sickly and dying brother to keep alive. 

Stannis Baratheon had kept his little brother close, as close as Jaime would have kept Tyrion under the same circumstances, and held his head high - indeed, the King seemed to encourage him to do so, seemed to take it very seriously that they were cousins, even if only as close of cousins as Jaime was to whatever pestilent Osgreys there yet remained - despite the ridicule directed toward him by all of court.

Jaime admired him, a little, because even he did not have Stannis Baratheon's hard neck - losing his eye had knocked some of the pride from him, and he found himself avoiding certain people because of how they looked at him.

 

* * *

 

 

"I wish you would at least speak to me," he said to Cersei, standing in the door of her bedchamber with his hands folded behind his back. His sword was heavy on his hip, a weight he had not yet swung since his recovery, but he otherwise felt lighter for the lack of white enamelled plate on his shoulders, the absence of the Queen's pain on his soul.

"I do not know what there is for me to say," she said, not looking away from her mirror. She looked even more beautiful than usual, her hair shining in the dying light, rubies the size of eggs gleaming at her throat, but she also looked angrier than he had ever seen her before, and he did not know what to do to alleviate that rage. "You have turned against us all, you know. You were loyal to  _them_ before you were loyal to  _me."_

"I was bound to them," Jaime pointed out quietly, closing the door behind him and hoping the Spider was not watching them from his web. "I had sworn vows, Cersei. I thought that my life was in their hands."

"You had already slain the  _King!"_ she hissed, rounding on him like the Warrior in female form, the neat little stool before her dressing table tumbling and spinning on the floor in her wake. "What matter the Dornish whore and her brats when you had murdered the man who wore the crown?!"

"No matter," he said, surprised to find himself disagreeing with her, "save that they were innocent of any crime. Elia Martell is not the reason you never wed Rhaegar, sister. That was all in the hands of the man I  _murdered,_ if you remember - the Queen had as little to do with arranging her marriage as you will yours."

Jaime had heard rumours of who Cersei might wed - he was a favourite of the King's and of the Queen's, after all, and so was positioned to hear a great many rumours - and knew that she would be even angrier if those same rumours reached her ears.

"Stannis Baratheon is to hold Storm's End," he said, taunting her now, "provided his brother fosters at court - what do you think of that, sister? Do you think you will enjoy being Lady of Storm's End?"

Her face, so flushed in her previous passion, went deathly pale.

"Father would never see me wed to a rebel," she whispered. "He would  _not-"_

"If it tied you to the crown," Jaime said, "he would see you wed to  _anyone._ And the King has already made noises about the first daughter born to House Baratheon being wed to Prince Aegon."

 

* * *

 

 

Cersei's wedding fell on a cool day, clouded over with the promise of rain.

Jaime fucked her that morning, and hoped that no child would come of it. If Cersei would deny him even her smiles, then he would deny her that which she had once told him she wanted more than anything -  _if not Rhaegar's children,_ she had panted as he rutted against her, only the slick linen of her smallclothes between them,  _then yours, only yours._

Let her birth a whole army of black-haired brats, to frown and scowl about the Stormlands like their father. See if Jaime cared.

He did, of course, but he would not let her have the satisfaction of seeing it, so he sat with the Queen's brother, Prince Oberyn, and those other Dornishmen who had come to celebrate the King's victory and to take Tyrion's measure on Princess Arianne's behalf, and had a fine old time.

He did excuse himself at the bedding, though, and hoped that no one noticed it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a tumblr prompt, but it'll take me a while to actually get to the prompt - bear with me! 
> 
> Title from 'Take Me To Church' by Hozier


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